City Council - Special Meeting

Got my Maria calendar Thanksgiving. It'll be another couch day. Well, no, because my daughter is invited. Yeah, just

unfortunately. Well, because I have to work on Friday, I can't go to my daughter's Thanksgiving because I work a double on Wednesday. I'd have to leave early Thursday morning, but then I have to leave because I can't see. So, I have to leave. Yeah. So, and I mean I cannot see Well, with my headlights, it makes my eyes go like this. So I can't see which side of the road I'm on. So I have to leave before and my daughter doesn't cook. So that does not give me enough sit on my couch and watch Hallmark Christmas. Not too bad. But I had people

usually pretty good about that. Thanksgiving isn't as

they changed. If you don't like it, go play the council. I matter of fact if you mention my name

I know I that I mean even though it's not far,

which in the summertime is not so bad. I guess we're ready. Kathy, you ready for us? All right, it's 601 and I'll call this meeting of the Mount Vernon City Council to order. We do have a quorum present. I appreciate everybody being here tonight. Um Craig is going to lead us in our invocation.

Please bow with me. Father God, we just thank you for your grace and your mercy towards us. And I just pray God that you give us wisdom as we conduct the city's business tonight. I thank you for all those that are here that serve in a capacity to help the citizens of this great community. And I just pray God that our hearts always be true to you and our works of service. I just that you bless this meeting now in your son's holy name. Amen.

Amen. Please join for our pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nation. on the on the consent the consent agenda. I'm going to pull the financials from this consent agenda and we'll to approve those at the December meeting, but I would look for a motion to approve the consent agenda minus the financials. I'll approve. I'll second. All in favor?

I report on items of community interest. Is anything they have anything they like to share tonight? You have anything on community interest I want to share? All right. And we don't have anybody signed up for citizen participation tonight. So we will jump right into our items to be considered. Consider an act on item number two is consider an act on approval of hiring KBB consulting as consultant for the home program. I think we've used them in the past. Kathy BS. Yeah. So they do a good job for us. Yes. They Kathy, did you say that they were the only ones submitted?

How many did we do this year? How many have we had this year? New homes on the three. It's an underutilized program, but it's kind of hard to Okay. Okay. Good. All right. So, we need a motion to approve KBB consulting for the his consulting for the home program. We'll do a motion to approve. I'll second. Motion from Rebecca and second from Mary. All in favor? I.

Motion carries. Okay. Item three. Consider an act upon a resolution 25-15 approval of all matters incident and related to approving and authorizing publication of notice of intention to issue certificates of obligation including the adoption of a resolution pertaining there too. So this is this is us formally going public to finance the piece of the debt related to the p two big Texas Water Development Board notes that we're getting and yes and this is the part that's not outside of the grant. This is also where we approved the increase in water and sewer rates this year which was hard decision to make but that is actually what's funding the $1 million 1.15

and it actually made us we were able to get over $9.6 million worth of grant money. So that's the thing that we want to help the public understand and we'll send a letter out to that fact sometime December January sharing that that's you know that's that's what we've got is a a 90% grant on that $10.7 million loan package and we're hoping to hear the same kind of news on the next one on the raw water on the sewer side. So this is uh this was the hard decision to raise water rates. That's financing the part that well instead of financing 10.7 million, we're financing 1.5.

And this will this will keep the city in in once completed, this will keep the city in water supply and actually when the other one gets approved in wastewater probably for the next 30 to 50 years. So, it is a it's cheap money and it's free money and it's a great investment for the community. So, we would need a motion to approve. I'll make a motion to approve. Motion from Marty. I'll second. Second from Mary. All in favor? I do. We need to read these. We don't. Do we?

Okay. Thank you. A lot of words. All right, item. Well, y'all saw the time table. If y'all wanted to look at that, it's in the it's in the packet. And we're supposed to close. We're slated to close at the end of March on this.

All right, let's see. Okay, item four is consider act upon ordinance number 2025-07 amending chapter 14 of the code of ordinances. So, this is uh regarding to the city lake. This is kind of a funny one. I had um well, I'll name some names. Ed Joyce and some other guys grabbed me and said, "So, why aren't you gonna let anybody fish in the city lake?" I said, "What are you talking about?" They said, "We got an ordinance that says if anybody wants to fish or swim in the city lake or camp or a picnic or anything, they've got to get permission from the mayor." I said, "I don't know what you're talking about." So, as it turns out, there's an ordinance out there probably from I don't know where the 50s. I don't know who the mayor was at the time. look up there on the board. But they put it in effect that it's against the law to camp, fish, picnic, swim, fly, kite, fish, anything without coming to get permission from the mayor at that time or a city council member. And of course, there's other stuff around picking up your cigarette, your cigar stumps, and other things, which you can tell by the verbiage, it's way back, right? So tonight we are um going to take action hopefully and eliminate that to where the public can go fish and if you want to go swim go swim but if you want to go fishing you can go fishing and picnic and camp and enjoy the city lake which we're going to in 26 uh well this year um public works guys cleaned up some shoreline down there and around picnic tables and stuff just whenever they had some breaks in between fixing potholes and broken lines and it looks real good. So we're going to continue more of that work to make you know steady clean up lake and make it where it's easier to enjoy it. So, that's what that's where this came from is uh didn't realize there was anything on the books until I got chastised for blocking fishing at the city lake. So, I would need a a motion to amend ordinance number 2025-07 allowing the public to enjoy the lake.

A motion to amend. Motion from Rebecca and second from Marty. All in favor? I.

All right. Change the 1950s. All right. Item number five, consider an act upon approval of interlocal cooperation agreement with the Franklin County uh fire protection services. So, this is a lot of work over the last year with the county who's graciously come on board to help partner up to get fire protection going countywide and Blake is just great work and and just want to continue to thank you for the way you communicate and and and get people working together and and just have taken our fire department to a whole another level of professionalism than I've ever seen and appreciate that. So,

do you have any comments, Blake? I'll say that our neighbors last city And you and you've got the bunk houses all built which you guys did in house.

Yeah. It cost some money to material and stuff like that, but for the most part done by by city employees and and volunteers helping you guys, right?

Two rooms there back There's two guys shower 91. Certified firefighters, certified train also. very last. Any questions?

I just have a question like the service fee are we is it are we getting are we being paid monthly the quarterly? How monthly? It's monthly. So so we'll get two payments for November because this said the first payment was October 31st but that couldn't have happened. Um Mara has communicated to Blake that this their payment will come at the second uh commissioners meeting. It'll be approved regularly at the second commissioner's meeting, which usually happens 10th or 20th 15th or 20th of the month. So So we'll get a payment in December. We won't get a payment till December. No, we'll get two payments in November.

Okay. And one will happen tomorrow. And then and if they've had their second meeting for this month, then we'll get two payments. Okay. And then December we'll get a payment around the 15th to 20th somewhere in there wherever their second commission court meeting. And it's my understanding it's just going to be part of the payables in commission.

We had this on last meeting agenda where we didn't have a corum had it for the previous one. All right. If there's no thanks like there's no other questions, we would need a motion to approve. I'll make a motion to approve. Motion from Mary and a second from Marty. All in favor? I.

Cool. Cool times. Um item six, consider and act upon um approval of resolution 25-16 amending the organizational chart. We're making you want to bring that up. Maybe Kathy good to you want to open that one up. This is something we've needed needed to do for some time, but every so often any organization or city needs to just look and see who's where and make sure all the reporting lines are where they should be. So you can see directly under the council you'll have the city attorney, the city admin, the director, and the municipal judge role. Of course, it breaks down from there. I think is pretty straightforward.

Correct. So what what all does a court clerk collects payments, schedules, u court, those types of things.

How often do we have municipal court? Is it once a month? Once a month. So just one day a month. And so those trial come in for their tickets and stuff to talk or whatever it may be. Every day you'll have tickets type things. Yeah.

Is that maybe that's a question for Rebecca. Is that normal for the court clerk to report to the finance director or do they normally report So, it's more of a finance. I mean, is what we're looking at for clerk to report to the finance director.

They take tickets and ticket payments, those types of things. everything else generally makes sense to pretty straightforward I think anyways this needs to be done probably annually where you look at your order chart and make sure that everybody's reporting lines are correct especially if city grow and sometimes roles you may have somebody whose skill sets a little you know might be stronger in one area another you may find that they need to report indirectly indirectly But right now, I think it's it's a good time that we needed to update our work chart. So, we would need a motion to approve the changes to that.

I'll make a motion to approve. Motion from Marty, second. A second from Rebecca. All in favor? I. All right. Item number seven is considering act upon approval of resolution 25-17 adding additional personnel to accounts held at Alliance Bank in Mount Vernon. Rebecca's been in house how long now? Yeah. Yeah. Been very helpful many ways that it's hard. We didn't have enough many people that have access to look at the bank realize we probably need to have a way for more people to be able to access and view not actually

be signatories or make any movements of cash just to actually view the account. So like doing consulting work like you're doing for us right now to look at chart accounts and how movements happening within those accounts at the bank. It was it was cumbersome. So This will give Rebecca and also Angie opportunity to view only. So it won't be won't to be to be able to move cash any or actually sign off but to view the accounts.

Right. It will and the ability to set up payments but it's a two-step authorization process. Somebody can set up the payments and then somebody else like me has to approve the payments. So this doesn't have anything to do with signing checks. It's not a signatory. Yeah. But you can get around that by having a dual a dual authorization to do both. So but it's still going to require two people to do, but one person can have two different login to do the same.

Well, that's we I would think that we could have the bank prohibit that. Well, I I would hope so, but I mean, it can be done. I'm just I'm just looking at it strictly from a internal control. You don't want to have the person who processes payables to authorize payments and sign payments. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's right. I don't know how many people we want to have access to the bank account. Right now we just had one. You couldn't see it at all

right. So now Craig can see it and you can see it both now. But we just got set up. But but I can't I can't set up payments. Just you only and I could only walk and up until a week ago I could only see one bank account. I wasn't set up on all the accounts. Again, that's view only for whoever serving as mayor to be able to view the accounts to see the balances and the the transactions but not actually be able to transact. I'm just saying once you

to me once you do this it's a slippery slope because then whoever I mean whoever the administrator is can go in and change their access at any time. We can approve for them to have access in view only. But then then what what if what if you decide well I want them to be able to do anything. Come back to council approval on that. That needs to be here. That doesn't matter fact today the bank won't allow that to happen. You have to go to the council if you're going to change anybody. The bank has to have this ordinance. The bank has to has this ordinance to give them access to give them access. Okay. So they'll only they'll only get access to what the ordinance

what the ordinance what the resolution says access and view. Yeah. You can't if there's anything you want to add in the future. has to come back to council again say okay we want to give whatever access to whichever person has to get approved here again which I like that like it comes back to here for this so we're just voting on the viewing only view only so but they will be able to set up a payment if it needs to be set up somebody needs to leave somebody need to get paid Friday we have trouble get a check I think so you can set up a check if you needed to but you can't sign it would go to two people to So she would be able to set it up and you're the one that

access. So today like Kathy will grab me to come sign checks sometimes if it's me and Craig or me and whoever because got two signatures or like sometimes Mary get it. I'm just talking about not checks now AC's right. But you're telling me you you have to have two people approve an a how do you do that?

I don't know how you do it. I guess I've just never had to do it personally. I download it for him to go in. I tell him he has to sign in and he also has I have to have an access. You're doing that now? Yeah, we we've been doing that. Okay. Yeah, we've been doing that. It's just me and him. This will give in the access code. I have 30 seconds to be able to enter the access code for it to be approved. Okay?

Because it changes every 30 seconds. We need a little more flexibility to conduct business in city hall. So, but still any activity comes back to city council. If there's any further action down the road that you guys want to do, whoever's So, we would need a motion to approve that.

I'll do a motion for approval. Motion for Rebecca and second from Marty. All in favor? I Okay. Number eight, consider an act upon approval of resolution 25. We're going to take that off the agenda actually because we're past their date. Really? Even though it said in bright red letters on the bottom of it that

was not able to have Okay. Well, it doesn't hurt. That's for sure. Okay. So, this would be um

Yeah, that'd be great. Swept is going to going to take a rate increase like we know either either way. But I think it sends as much as statement from the cities that have the opportunity to vote on this to either slow it down, but how can I get this to quit? Do y'all want to read that? Well, I think that the I think the thing to read is um page three or four where it talks about special counsel's recommendations and you can see what the proposed rate increase is about almost four bucks for the residential um uh and um and it kind of details exactly where the where that's going to be broken down uh across the And it shows um increase per 1,00 kilowatt 1500 and 2000. Um and the percentage is there near the bottom right before you get to special counsel's recommendation. Again, every year takes this to the public utilities commission to try to get a rate increase. The firm um that represents uh cities on this um always gives us this option to pass this res resolution and it slows the rate increase down. SWEPCO always gets a rate increase at the end of the day just like center point does slows it down about about six months.

He's a big number though. Equates an increase of approximately 13.48%. Yeah. kind of surprised they're able to take that big of a increase but sure would be nice send them a message says we don't don't agree with that so I would ask for a motion to deny if so motion to deny got a motion to deny from Rebecca second from Mary all in favor I right we'll show them

all right number nine is consider an act upon casting 96 votes in the Franklin County Appraisal District Board of Directors election. I think last year we divided the votes equally among the candidates, but these can be can be in any order. You can give all to one or is it five? Are there five people on that board? They're all on that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If there's any there's any any changes to that, you can any any number any one of them if you wanted to, but I think we did divide them up last year.

We did. It may not divide exactly evenly, but What y'all think? I'm thinking just divide them equally. There's five people on the board and they're the only five. Yeah, just divide them equally.

25, you good with that, too? I'm good with that. Okay, we need a mo a motion to approve dividing the 196 votes. I guess you can give the extra vote if it doesn't come out even to whoever's in the first place and work down the extra votes if you want to do that. I don't know if that divides out evenly. I don't think it does. Put the name in the hat.

Here you go. Do the math for y'all. We can decide who gets the extra room. She'll have one extra vote. Bill get 39 and one would get an extra. Got a favorite? Chad. Give us Chad. All right. At least there's somebody named. Okay. So, Chad gets gets 40 and the others get Are you good with that?

All right. All so Roger Kier, Austin Perrier, Mike Ram, and Brad Sears all get 39 votes and Chad Wooten would get 40. So we're supporting them. In other words, we need a motion to approve. I'll make a motion to approve. Motion. Second from Marty. All in favor?

I. Okay. Uh, number 10. Right now, we've got generally one account, but our utility funds and everything's a lot of things are in one bank account. We're going to get better organized at the bank and start breaking things out into more accounts. So, our utility fund, we're going to start with that. We want to set utilities up to where monies are coming in and out for utilities are in the utility fund. We'll probably end up doing the same thing for hotel motel tax funds. We'll get these things where you can see the buckets that they're supposed to be in. It'll be a lot I think a lot cleaner and easier process in the future for managing cash at the bank. So, this would be to establish an an account for the for a utility fund and cut over for that. I'm not exactly sure what the best date is for that, but I'll let y'all decide that, Rebecca. That's something I'll probably be good at helping us model that out. Maybe you got an idea when you think that might would happen. Maybe first of the year.

Yeah, it'll be a bit of a process. We won't just cut over overnight. It'll be get it all set up so it's a clean transition, but it'll be a lot more orderly process to have all of utility funding going into one account and managed there, right? Yeah, this is one of the many things Rebecca's helping us through is going this will be a be better better for our financial health to be able to keep things in the right buckets and easier to view what you got. Is there any questions on on this one? Pretty straightforward, I think. So, we would need a motion to approve authorizing an additional account at at Alliance Bank.

I'll do a motion to approve for additional accounts. Motion from Rebecca, a second from Marty. All in favor? I.

Item number 11 is considering act upon resolution 25-9 approving an interim finance director. Um, Rebecca's been Elliot's been with us for a bit now and and as we continue to work through the process, we're realizing it's her talents are very, very good. So, we're we're going to need to put her in a position where she has the ability to really oversee those accounts and and be a it won't be a permanent position. It's interum. But right now, while we're setting up new bank accounts and and making some of the moves we're making, this will cover us as a council to we have her formally in that role while we work through that process. I appreciate you spending the time over here. I know it's she's staying up here three or four nights a week away from her family right now. So, that's I know this isn't something you'd want to do for a lot longer, but we appreciate you being committed to helping us right now, but we do want to formalize that via the council. So, ask for a motion to approve to formalize.

I'll make a motion. Motion from Marty. I'll second. Second from Mary. All in favor? Approve. I mean, I thanks.

All right. Um and item 12, consider an act upon resolution 25-21 approving a line of credit with the financial institution. You want to speak to that one? Um this this comes as a recommendation uh one of the things that Rebecca and I have talked about um to go ahead and start looking around uh a bank that might would work with the city to establish a line of credit so that we have available funds when necessary to meet our GFO A recommended balances. Uh, as you know, we tried this with the Alliance and and um even though our city attorney said that it was common practice and it could be done, we couldn't convince their city attorney of this. So, um, at uh, Rebecca's recommendation, we brought this to y'all to at least go start talking to some other financial institutions um, to see if they would be willing to do this and what this would what this would entail. bring this back to council for their consideration if they consider it. I didn't want to go even talk to him without y'all's approval to go at least begin a conversation. And also I thought that if we pass this that alliance might reconsider, frankly. Um you know because it is it is common practice according to Stan. It's very common practice for this. Um, so basically at this point I'm just seeking the ability to go shop this around and get information to bring back to the council.

I think it's healthy to have it sitting there if we for the event of an emergency that we need to have access to some funds. We're a little low on cash right now because we did some big projects last year and several of them went over. So that's this would be one of those be nice to have a little extra, but this would be I think healthy to have it established and always have it in the background for when when you do need it. If an emergency pops up, would we want a dollar amount stated in there not to go over?

Well, I mean, I'd love to have a dollar amount, but I don't know what that would be. Um, you know, uh, and again, I'm not going to establish it. This is just bringing back, you know, it have to be ratified by council and I think council could set a dollar amount at that time. um two months operating for us is gonna it's going to change as time goes on. Maybe this is probably something that we need to establish a matrix that says here's here's what that would I was just thinking a limit not to go above

well this says administrators um it gives you the authorization to establish a line of credit. So you would just go to a bank, you would establish it, but then you just said that it would have to come back here for

Well, the documents would have to be approved by the council. The bank wouldn't just allow me to say, you know, give me a million dollar line of credit on behalf of the city. They would need docu They would need documentation from the council that it is been approved. But yeah, I agree. At some point before we approve this, we're going to say, "Hey, we want it to be a quart million dollars or $200,000 or whatever it may be." I don't see this necessarily being a million dollar line of credit. I don't either. I mean, I had it more in my mind like 500 or, you know, no more than the 750 which we tried to go for the last time.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you could establish something that says a matrix. We want that thing to follow our percentage of our our two months operating or whatever it may be. And that way future you might have a little leverage with Alliance if you're going to open up a new account. I mean, you might want to do the new account wherever you're going to have the line of credit. Well, and that's that's another that's an excellent point. And and and I was thinking, you know, if I were shopping around, I'm sure, well, they would ask how much, and I wasn't thinking more than half a million. Yeah. That's kind of the number I had in my mind and I like that better than Yeah, I think so too.

But that's that's an excellent point, Mary. You know, utility fun. Well, it be it could be another bank. It could be potentially we use another institution. This would be letting Craig have conversations with bankers to say we're looking to establish a line of credit for the city of Mount Vernon. We want to do that in unison. Yeah. I think it's a good idea to add it along with the new account. That's something I mean they're not really going to want to give you a line of credit if they don't have any of your accounts. I would think they're going to want to be doing business for sure having a line of credit in there.

And full disclosure, this has come up in conversation like at Rotary or whatever with some other banks and I've just asked generally, do you consider these types of things for municipalities? And the answer has been we have several municipalities that have lines of credit with us. So, uh, so it's a it's a common practice and, uh, I just I I really would love to be able to work with our bank, but I mean it was um, it was a hard no this last time.

This is just letting Craig shop so this would come back to us. game for that. We would need a motion to approve to let him. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Motion from Mary and a second from Rebecca. All in favor? I so discussion items. We're done with action items here. You have really don't have much to to say. Um um we got streets fixed. Thank you, Chad. And I think we're getting a lot of kudos on that. I have too.

And we're uh having streets the rightways cleared on a number of streets and I think we've gotten a few kudos on that which is a nice thing to hear. Um uh parks uh that we should find out about the new park grant in January. Everything looks good on that. Um infrastructure we've had no major issues ever. Uh got the generator installed at the wastewater treatment plant and just in time for a not good old ice storm, which I hope we don't have. And um I think that we probably want to talk about trash services at a workshop in the upcoming months with regard to franchise fees and things like that. And I sent you guys some information a couple months ago about some options that have been presented to us. And I we'll revisit that. Senate again when we have a little bit more um information to be able to share with you and I'm getting some additional information from them. So that's that's all I've got unless y'all have any questions. All right. Well, no other actions tonight. We can call this an early early evening for you guys if you'd like to make a motion to adjurnn. Motion from Mary.

Second. Are all in favor? All right. Thank you. Thanks.

All righty then.

I didn't get to I heard